China and the United States have the world's most important bilateral relationship. But the runner-up is surely China and India. After all, the two countries have a combined population of (roughly) 2.5 billion, amounting to around 40 percent of the
world's population. They also have rapidly growing economies, nuclear weapons, and a border over 600 miles long -- one that remains unresolved after a
deadly skirmish between the two countries in 1962.

As a result, when 50 Chinese soldiers crossed the border and pitched tents 12 miles into the Indian region of Ladakh last month, the world reacted with some alarm. Now that the soldiers have left, many questions remain: Was Beijing reacting to an unseen Indian provocation? Or was this the
work of a "rogue" element of the PLA, acting without orders from above? Neither explanation, if true, is comforting.

Relations between China and India are generally stable. The two sides are members of the BRICS, a club of emerging market nations that periodically meets
to discuss areas of mutual interest. China is India's largest trading partner, and trade between the two exceeded $75 billion last year -- a number that
is trending upward. Clearly, India and China would have little to gain -- and a lot to lose -- from a major conflict. So why should we
worry about one anyway? Here are three main reasons:

That Pesky Border

In late October 1962, when the Western world was consumed with the Cuban Missile Crisis, China's People's Liberation Army assaulted an India military position
in the disputed territory of Arunachal Pradesh, routing the poorly-trained Indian forces. A month later, China invaded again before finally calling a
unilateral cease-fire on the 21st of November: too late for the 2,000 or so who lost their lives. Ever since, the border -- referred to by the vaguely
Orwellian name of "Line of Actual Control" -- remains a sticking point between the two. One reason? The part of China bordering India, alas, is Tibet -- the "autonomous region" that has caused no end of political trouble for Beijing ever since the People's Republic "liberated" it in 1950.

Tibet

In the Western world, we tend to think of Tibet as a barren "rooftop" lacking in natural resources, a wasteland of imposing mountains and harsh, windswept plains. However, Tibet actually has one important resource in abundance: rivers. Several of Asia's most important bodies of water originate in the
region, including the Yangtze, Yellow, Mekong, and Brahmaputra -- the latter of which flows into India and provides sustenance for a significant chunk
of the country's population. Unsurprisingly, New Delhi pays very close attention to Chinese efforts to dam the Brahmaputra, since any ruptures in its flow would affect the lives and livelihoods of millions of people.

Then, there's the issue of the Dalai Lama. The Tibetan leader has resided in India since fleeing Tibet in 1959 and holds court in the northeastern town of Dharamsala. Since his departure, China has
attempted to isolate the Dalai Lama through discrediting him in the media ("wolf in monk's robes" is a typical description you find in the official Chinese press) and pressuring foreign
governments to ignore his visits. While this strategy has largely worked -- the Dalai Lama long ago gave up demands for Tibetan independence in favor of "autonomy", for instance -- Beijing surely understands that the de facto capital of the Tibetan movement lies firmly within Indian territory. This is a sore point that isn't likely to go away, even after the aging Dalai Lama dies.

Warming U.S.-India Relations

It seems difficult to believe now, but during a significant stretch of the Cold War the United States actually had better relations with China than it did
with India, which tilted toward the Soviet Union during the conflict. Now, of course, the Washington -- New Delhi relationship has warmed to the point where the Obama Administration explicitly endorsed India's
inclusion as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. As a vibrant multi-cultural democracy with a large English-speaking population,
India has been described as a "natural ally" of the United States, in contrast to authoritarian China.

This development, without question, worries China. India also has close ties with Japan, China's historic enemy, and Beijing's strategists have reason to believe that
a Washington-Tokyo-New Delhi alliance may emerge as a check on Chinese power in Asia.

Will any of these problems come to a head? Probably not soon. Sino-Indian ties seem largely mended after this recent incursion; India's foreign minister
plans to visit Beijing later this week and China's premier Li Keqiang is due in New Delhi toward the end of the month. But absent some major diplomatic
initiative to resolve these longstanding issues, the risk of another incident occurring remains high. And next time, a peaceful resolution may not be so
easy to obtain.

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Should you drink more coffee? Should you take melatonin? Can you train yourself to need less sleep? A physician’s guide to sleep in a stressful age.

During residency, Iworked hospital shifts that could last 36 hours, without sleep, often without breaks of more than a few minutes. Even writing this now, it sounds to me like I’m bragging or laying claim to some fortitude of character. I can’t think of another type of self-injury that might be similarly lauded, except maybe binge drinking. Technically the shifts were 30 hours, the mandatory limit imposed by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, but we stayed longer because people kept getting sick. Being a doctor is supposed to be about putting other people’s needs before your own. Our job was to power through.

The shifts usually felt shorter than they were, because they were so hectic. There was always a new patient in the emergency room who needed to be admitted, or a staff member on the eighth floor (which was full of late-stage terminally ill people) who needed me to fill out a death certificate. Sleep deprivation manifested as bouts of anger and despair mixed in with some euphoria, along with other sensations I’ve not had before or since. I remember once sitting with the family of a patient in critical condition, discussing an advance directive—the terms defining what the patient would want done were his heart to stop, which seemed likely to happen at any minute. Would he want to have chest compressions, electrical shocks, a breathing tube? In the middle of this, I had to look straight down at the chart in my lap, because I was laughing. This was the least funny scenario possible. I was experiencing a physical reaction unrelated to anything I knew to be happening in my mind. There is a type of seizure, called a gelastic seizure, during which the seizing person appears to be laughing—but I don’t think that was it. I think it was plain old delirium. It was mortifying, though no one seemed to notice.

His paranoid style paved the road for Trumpism. Now he fears what’s been unleashed.

Glenn Beck looks like the dad in a Disney movie. He’s earnest, geeky, pink, and slightly bulbous. His idea of salty language is bullcrap.

The atmosphere at Beck’s Mercury Studios, outside Dallas, is similarly soothing, provided you ignore the references to genocide and civilizational collapse. In October, when most commentators considered a Donald Trump presidency a remote possibility, I followed audience members onto the set of The Glenn Beck Program, which airs on Beck’s website, theblaze.com. On the way, we passed through a life-size replica of the Oval Office as it might look if inhabited by a President Beck, complete with a portrait of Ronald Reagan and a large Norman Rockwell print of a Boy Scout.

Why the ingrained expectation that women should desire to become parents is unhealthy

In 2008, Nebraska decriminalized child abandonment. The move was part of a "safe haven" law designed to address increased rates of infanticide in the state. Like other safe-haven laws, parents in Nebraska who felt unprepared to care for their babies could drop them off in a designated location without fear of arrest and prosecution. But legislators made a major logistical error: They failed to implement an age limitation for dropped-off children.

Within just weeks of the law passing, parents started dropping off their kids. But here's the rub: None of them were infants. A couple of months in, 36 children had been left in state hospitals and police stations. Twenty-two of the children were over 13 years old. A 51-year-old grandmother dropped off a 12-year-old boy. One father dropped off his entire family -- nine children from ages one to 17. Others drove from neighboring states to drop off their children once they heard that they could abandon them without repercussion.

Since the end of World War II, the most crucial underpinning of freedom in the world has been the vigor of the advanced liberal democracies and the alliances that bound them together. Through the Cold War, the key multilateral anchors were NATO, the expanding European Union, and the U.S.-Japan security alliance. With the end of the Cold War and the expansion of NATO and the EU to virtually all of Central and Eastern Europe, liberal democracy seemed ascendant and secure as never before in history.

Under the shrewd and relentless assault of a resurgent Russian authoritarian state, all of this has come under strain with a speed and scope that few in the West have fully comprehended, and that puts the future of liberal democracy in the world squarely where Vladimir Putin wants it: in doubt and on the defensive.

The same part of the brain that allows us to step into the shoes of others also helps us restrain ourselves.

You’ve likely seen the video before: a stream of kids, confronted with a single, alluring marshmallow. If they can resist eating it for 15 minutes, they’ll get two. Some do. Others cave almost immediately.

This “Marshmallow Test,” first conducted in the 1960s, perfectly illustrates the ongoing war between impulsivity and self-control. The kids have to tamp down their immediate desires and focus on long-term goals—an ability that correlates with their later health, wealth, and academic success, and that is supposedly controlled by the front part of the brain. But a new study by Alexander Soutschek at the University of Zurich suggests that self-control is also influenced by another brain region—and one that casts this ability in a different light.

“Well, you’re just special. You’re American,” remarked my colleague, smirking from across the coffee table. My other Finnish coworkers, from the school in Helsinki where I teach, nodded in agreement. They had just finished critiquing one of my habits, and they could see that I was on the defensive.

I threw my hands up and snapped, “You’re accusing me of being too friendly? Is that really such a bad thing?”

“Well, when I greet a colleague, I keep track,” she retorted, “so I don’t greet them again during the day!” Another chimed in, “That’s the same for me, too!”

Unbelievable, I thought. According to them, I’m too generous with my hellos.

When I told them I would do my best to greet them just once every day, they told me not to change my ways. They said they understood me. But the thing is, now that I’ve viewed myself from their perspective, I’m not sure I want to remain the same. Change isn’t a bad thing. And since moving to Finland two years ago, I’ve kicked a few bad American habits.

Modern slot machines develop an unbreakable hold on many players—some of whom wind up losing their jobs, their families, and even, as in the case of Scott Stevens, their lives.

On the morning of Monday, August 13, 2012, Scott Stevens loaded a brown hunting bag into his Jeep Grand Cherokee, then went to the master bedroom, where he hugged Stacy, his wife of 23 years. “I love you,” he told her.

Stacy thought that her husband was off to a job interview followed by an appointment with his therapist. Instead, he drove the 22 miles from their home in Steubenville, Ohio, to the Mountaineer Casino, just outside New Cumberland, West Virginia. He used the casino ATM to check his bank-account balance: $13,400. He walked across the casino floor to his favorite slot machine in the high-limit area: Triple Stars, a three-reel game that cost $10 a spin. Maybe this time it would pay out enough to save him.

A report will be shared with lawmakers before Trump’s inauguration, a top advisor said Friday.

Updated at 2:20 p.m.

President Obama asked intelligence officials to perform a “full review” of election-related hacking this week, and plans will share a report of its findings with lawmakers before he leaves office on January 20, 2017.

Deputy White House Press Secretary Eric Schultz said Friday that the investigation will reach all the way back to 2008, and will examine patterns of “malicious cyber-activity timed to election cycles.” He emphasized that the White House is not questioning the results of the November election.

Asked whether a sweeping investigation could be completed in the time left in Obama’s final term—just six weeks—Schultz replied that intelligence agencies will work quickly, because the preparing the report is “a major priority for the president of the United States.”

A professor of cognitive science argues that the world is nothing like the one we experience through our senses.

As we go about our daily lives, we tend to assume that our perceptions—sights, sounds, textures, tastes—are an accurate portrayal of the real world. Sure, when we stop and think about it—or when we find ourselves fooled by a perceptual illusion—we realize with a jolt that what we perceive is never the world directly, but rather our brain’s best guess at what that world is like, a kind of internal simulation of an external reality. Still, we bank on the fact that our simulation is a reasonably decent one. If it wasn’t, wouldn’t evolution have weeded us out by now? The true reality might be forever beyond our reach, but surely our senses give us at least an inkling of what it’s really like.